Flash Train Incident
Stumble of Stagehand During the years of Leonid Brezhnev's reign over the Soviet Union, conflicts arose over rising concerns for strategic ballistic missile launchers which swept up an exorbitant amount of attention from both the United States and USSR governments. The matters were attended to with the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, but range and scope of the documents wordings and specific details were not as important as the unnecessary attention it drew. With the world diverting so much attention to the treaty, an opportunity was given to a small group of anarchists called "Stagehand" to acquire weapons-grade plutonium from a reprocessing plant near Kyshtym. The plan started with staging a security breach specifically so it would end in failure in order to steal identification tags and Hazmat Suits from a location with attention diverted from it, but the plan was botched halfway through and the stolen items were hidden just outside the facility before the intruder was captured and jailed. Because of the bizarre act and the nature of what the situation implied at the time during the treaty signing, the man was isolated in prison for several months and denied guest visits as suspicion for danger was at an all-time high. Getting information from the man was impossible as his tongue had been cut out just a month before he was captured, rending him unable to speak, which furthered these suspicions. Stagehand later had arranged for another of its members to frame himself for murder just to gain entry to the prison and contact the mute. It was at this time that the USCCDS received it's information about the strange situation, long after Stagehand's insider managed to obtain the information they needed from the mute. By the time the Stagehand insider got a visit from one of their couriers to leak the information, the USCCDS offered it's cooperation with the Soviet Union as a sign of goodwill. Unfortunately, time that was wasted on pleasantries was taken advantage of as the mute committed suicide in the prison long before any of the USCCDS's committee could reach the prison. The suddenness of it prompted the USCCDS to overstep any kind of legal proceedings and jump straight to investigating, finding the Stagehand insider quickly and ascertaining his affiliation with the group just before Stagehand managed to steal the plutonium from the reprocessing plant. The USCCDS then sent in a request for the Hellhounds to track down and capture the Stagehand instigators, but the order was overheard in enough detail by the Helmsmen Captain, allowing him time to stage his own efforts to intercept the Stagehand instigators. Resulting Conflict With newfound knowledge of a train being involved to transport the stolen plutonium, The Helmsmen expected Stagehand to have far more security before and after the train was boarded, but not during the ride itself in order to maintain a low profile. Along with this, they anticipated that the Hellhounds would have found a way to insert operatives on the train long before Stagehand would manage to arrive and inspect the train for problems in the event that they didn't catch the instigators before then. With this thought in mind, two of the Helmsmen were arranged to have the train boarded the train via an overpass while it was en route and halfway to its destination as they easily stood out and would have compromised the situation had they tried anything else. The captain, who was the only one that could pass himself off as a normal passenger, managed to slip aboard before the Stagehand instigators arrived in order to try estimating their opposition. The Conflict arose when the Hellhounds arrived after the train's departure via helicopter, but before the train reached the overpass where the other two Helmsmen were waiting. The sudden surprise of the Hellhounds as they gained entry prompted the rival captains to fight one another and the ensuing escalation caused the Stagehand instigators aboard to open fire in the confusion and frightened the Stagehand commander into fleeing to the train's front cars and climbing atop the train during the initial breakout of the firefight. The Hellhounds Captain dismissed the fight and pursued the target to the train's roof, just moments before the train reached the overpass where one of the Helmsmen drove off of it with a modified motorcycle, landing on the train's roof and crashing into the Stagehand commander with it. The stagehand instigator was killed instantly and the driver snatched the plutonium before driving off. The Plutonium was found returned the next day at the reprocessing plant it was stolen from, somehow having found it's way past two levels of security on the inside of the plant without employees noticing any unauthorized entry. Repercussions The Hellhounds ultimately marked the operation as a failure and the report given from the Captain cited an involvement from a 'third group' as the primary cause of interference. When questioned by the ISID, the peculiar information Brooks had provided lead them to believe that there was a leak in the USCCDS and prompted the ISID to issue temporary suspension to activities from Hellhounds until the authenticity of the statements could be verified. When the ISID dispatched investigators to check the branches of USCCDS and other American and Russian government members that were aware of USSCDS, they came to the conclusion that such actions described in the account that Brooks gave were impossible from forces external to USCCDS. This, along with the surprise outrage of the Hellhounds Commander directed at the USCCDS created a stir within the all the Special Operations branches until eventually causing the Project Halberd group to divulge information about the vehicle in the reports. When Brooks was shown blueprints of a vehicle and made a positive identification of them, The Helmsmen group was immediately placed on suspension for reckless endangerment and multiple violations of USCCDS conduct and procedure despite having been responsible for successfully returning the stolen plutonium.